Open Premium Members

No - the site is too new to be effectively monetised through advertising - although that is just starting to change now and I'm getting a bit more interest from some companies in the industry.

I would not have been able to continue the site without the early financial support from the business and premium members - I've been literally living off savings for the past 5 months as I'm now working full time on running this site and have needed this early input of cashflow to help pay the bills.

Advertising is a fickle revenue stream - especially for sites that are not well established in the marketplace yet. I am hoping eventually to be able to get some long term sponsors to help smooth things out - but until then, I am very much reliant on the membership upgrades.

This is certainly possible - would take a bit of work, but can be done. Might be the better solution rather than trying to identify a better name (I can't think of anything suitable anyway).

That kind of depends by what you mean by "adding to this community".

As I mentioned in an earlier post - everyone who posts is adding to this community - even if it's just the occasional "newbie" question, there is someone else who is bound to benefit from the answer as well so it still adds value. Without people posting, there would be no real point to this site - so people getting involved in the community are critical to the success of the site.

However, those who choose to explicitly help support the site financially through upgrading their membership, also add to the community in a different way. This website is now my prime source of income - it is what puts food on the table and clothes our kids. Without the support of the paid members, the site would not be possible to operate in the way that it is.

This is why Somersoft was archived - it became too expensive to continue to be operated being funded solely out of the Somers' pockets.

So everyone is important - both people who contribute to the discussions and those who also contribute financially.

 

You mean low numbers of registered users? I think nearly 3,500 registered members is under 5 months is pretty phenomenal really.

Somersoft ended up with nearly 27,000 registered users - but it took nearly 13 years to get to that level.

I just checked the database, Somersoft hit 3,500 members in April 2006 - 3.5 years after the migration to vBulletin in September 2002.

Only just under 13,000 of those users on Somersoft ever posted.

So far on PropertyChat we have nearly 1,800 members who have posted, out of around of 3,500 registered users - which is pretty good I think.